The series became shallow and too often lacking in substance. But Season 4 tended to veer too far in the opposite direction. The moroseness of Season 3 and the Savitar conflict had become too overbearing. There's no question that the series needed to lighten up. That speaks to a larger problem with Season 4 in terms of the ongoing struggle to balance humor and drama. The cutesy dynamic between Caitlin and her alter ego is not where I expected the series to go in the wake of Season 3. Even stranger was the fact that Killer Frost was treated as more a source of comic relief than a legitimate threat. But given where Season 3 left her, fleeing her home at STAR Labs in order to battle the villain within, it was more than a little strange to see her abruptly return to the fold. Caitlin at least received more attention in Season 4.
The silver lining here is that Legends of Tomorrow has thankfully been making better use of the character. Instead, the character was sidelined almost immediately and quickly booted off the show entirely. It was never realistic to expect this series to shelve Barry for years, but at least a handful of Wally-centric episodes would have been appreciated. Comic readers know that Barry's death paved the way for Wally to take up the mantle for the better part of two decades, becoming the definitive Flash in the eyes of many fans. The Flash made a lot of mistakes in its fourth season, but perhaps its biggest was wasting so much potential when it came to Wally and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker). Within the first 15 minutes of the premiere, Barry was already back and the seeds were being sown for a completely new conflict. I know I wasn't alone in being excited at the prospect of Wally taking the lead for a while, nor was I the only one supremely disappointed in just how brief his tenure turned out to be. The problems began immediately in the premiere, "The Flash Reborn." With Barry (Grant Gustin) having doomed himself to a lifetime of Speed Force imprisonment in the Season 3 finale, it fell on Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale), Iris (Candice Patton) and the rest of Team Flash to fill that void. Both of those changes sounded like just the shot in the arm the series needed, but neither worked as intended. And after three years in a row driven by Team Flash's feud with an evil speedster, the series finally shook things up by focusing on a completely different sort of villain. Criticisms that the series had grown too dark and brooding during the Zoom and Savitar era were taken to heart, resulting in a revamped tone that redoubled its emphasis on lighthearted comedy and banter. At this point, fans can only hope that the Flash will continue to follow Arrow's example by turning things around in Season 5.įrom the start of this season, it's clear the writers were intent on moving away from the conventions established in the first three years. The series plummeted in quality, with many of the changes aimed at fixing the problems of Season 3 instead making matters worse. The same phenomenon struck again with The Flash in its fourth season. Arrow really hit a wall in Season 4, which easily ranks as the series' worst to date (despite all Season 6 did to try to "beat" it). After this year, Arrowverse fans might start to feel a sense of dread when one of these shows reaches its fourth season.